Esk March 2025 teaser

Lava Surfing

by Suz Sullivan
(Lester Beach MB Canada)

Lava Surfing

Lava Surfing

Over the last winter, the worst one in 125 years I might add, I’d been reading about different painting styles and approaches, one was color blocking.

I wanted to try it. This is how Lava Surfing came about. I took the waves, the lava lamp motion and surf boards, and put it all together. One of my favourite movies is Surfer Dude, I bought it, I watch it often. The surf ‘culture’ and attitude towards life really inspires me to kick back, relax, take life as it comes, ‘ride the wave’. I am trying to adapt this philosophy/culture to my own life, which is so challenging to live day to day as a disabled person.

When I finished Lava Surfing, I was very happy with it. I was surprised how much movement it displayed, and was happy with the colors I had mixed, as I create all colors from a primary color palette.

The painting was happy, bright and moving, all the things I was aspiring to in life. Life has limited my movement, challenged my happiness and brightness, and this painting gave me the chance to experience these things.

As for painting Lava Surfing, it was very challenging, I painted in Golden Open Acrylics . . . which is slow to dry . . I painstakingly painted in all the blocks being so careful ‘not to blend’ outside of my blocks, it made me really learn to take control of that brush and where it was going, to me it felt like drawing with paints.

Although I enjoyed doing Lava Surfing, I discovered that I was happier in a messy, blending situation, and the concentration and detailing required to do this painting, really wasn’t for me
in the long run. But with that aside, I’m happy with it and sure glad I did it. Chalk one up to color blocking !

I think painting is such a good expression for me, because when I paint, the best of me comes out and onto the canvas.

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